An ex-RAAF, Pakistan
Air Force Mirage which received a full overhaul at the Pakistan
Aeronautical Complex and hence was repainted in conventional
camouflage.

RAAF
Mirage IIIO/D in Pakistan

I wanted to share these pictures of ex-Australian Mirages now in
service with the Pakistan Air Force.

I picked up these pictures from PakDef discussion forum via Mr. Usman
Shabbir but were originally taken by Mr. Eddy de Kruff.

The two Mirages (below) belong to No. 7 "Bandits" Tactical
Attack Squadron based at PAF Base Masroor in Karachi. This base operates
2 more Mirage squadrons No 8"Haiders" Tactical Attack Squadron
and No. 22 "Ghazi" Operational Conversion Unit. No 8 Squadron
operates primarily in Maritime strike role and is equipped with Exocet
missiles.

In the background of the pictures you also see some F-7P Skybolts
which belong to the No 2 "Minhas" Air Superiority Squadron.

Now back to the pictures attached.

Pakistan bought 50 ex-Aussie Mirages. The project "ROSE"
(Retrofit of Strike Element") was set up to reclaim as many
airplanes as possible and to upgrade them with latest avionics.
Originally it was thought that only 20 - 25 airframes could be made
operational but eventualy, more than 40 airframes were refurbuished and
put back in service.

The avionics upgrade included fitting of HUD, HOTAS controls, RWR's
chaff / flare and most important of all the retrofit of FIAR Griffo M
Radar. This radar is the Italian copy of APG-68 and has full look down
shoot down capability. At present No 7 Squadron is inducting a BVR
weapon of South African origin.

Some of the ex-Aussie Mirages did not even require a complete
airframe overhaul. The picture above (Mirage Tail # 560) is one of the
examples. However, notice that the wings carry a totally different
camoflauge. The reason for this is that some of wings on the Aussie
Mirages were beyond economical repairs. PAF bought about 14 sets of zero
timed wings from South Africa and mated them with the Aussie fuselages.

This picture (above) shows an 8th. Squadron Mirage VPA3. This Mirage
has Agave Radar and LW-33 INS and is integrated with Exocets.

The final picture (above) shows a line up ex-Aussie Mirage IIID's of
22 OCU.

The Mirage serial numberof PAF are as follows: e.g 70-411 (70 is the
fiscal year ordered)